Ahmedabad: The jails in Gujarat, apart from being understaffed, are overcrowded, mentions India Justice Report 2025. According to the report, one of the four prisons in the state recorded an occupancy between 150-250%. “About 32 prisons in the state have 18% more inmates than their capacity,” the report says.
Nationally, average overcrowding in prisons stood at 131%, while it was 118% in Gujarat. The report further says that 26.2% of undertrials have been in the jails between one and three years. One-fourth of the jails had occupancy between 150 to 250%; however, there was no jail with over 250% occupancy, the report states.
The India Justice Report states that the jails in Gujarat function with a very high overall staff shortfall of 40%. Within the prison staff, vacancies are highest among prison officers (43%) and correctional staff (44%).
The report states that between 2021 and 2022, there was an increase in vacancies among its officers, from 30% to 43%. Vacancies among its medical staff doubled to 28%. The state was at ninth position in 2019, slipped to tenth in 2020, and in 2022 the state was at the sixth position.
The report states that according to the required norms, there should be one medical officer for every 300 inmates, but in Gujarat, one medical officer was available for 593 inmates. When it comes to officers, there was one cadre staff available for every 9.8 inmates, and the required number was one cadre staff for six inmates.